"Well, this will do!" explained

"Well,
this will do!" is what Bishop Philander Chase said upon
reaching the top of Gambier Hill for the first time on July 24, 1825... or so the legend
goes.

Bishop
Chase originally
established Kenyon College on his farm in Worthington, Ohio, a small frontier community to
the north of Columbus. Kenyon quickly outgrew Chase's farm, and the village
of Worthington was becoming too "urban" for Chase's
liking. Thus, he began scouting for a new location. He first chose a site along Alum
Creek-- not far from Worthington. However, his plans for this site fell
through. Chase then, with the help of Mount Vernon lawyer Henry B. Curtis
(pictured above with Chase), selected and purchased 8000 acres of land in Knox
County, along Owl Creek (the Kokosing River). In 1859, Curtis told the
story to the Kenyon Collegian.

The Prayer Cross, located on on the
spot where, according to legend,
Chase proclaimed, "Well, this will
do!"

The
Bishop and myself proceeded alone to the mount of the hill. The side was
thickly set with an undergrowth of oak bushes, frequently interlaced with
rambling grape vines. We struggled through these tangles on our horses
until about half way up the hill, when the Bishop, becoming discouraged with
that mode of proceeding, proposed that we should take it afoot. We
dismounted and hitched our horses, and then proceeded as well as we could until
we emerged on the top of the hill.

The
heavy timber that had once covered the crown of the hill, had principally, many
years before, been prostrated by a storm, or otherwise destroyed, so that,
excepting a more stunted grown of brush than we had just come through, the plain
on the top was comparatively open and free from obstruction to the view.
Passing a little northward, the whole panorama of the beautiful valley that lay
at our feet, the undulating line and varying surface of the distant hills,
eastward, southward, and westward, with the windings of the river, all were
brought into view, and presented such a scene and landscape of unsurpassed
loveliness and beauty. It certainly so appeared to me then, and so it
seemed to strike our good Bishop. Standing upon the trunk of an old fallen
oak, and permitting his eye to pass round the horizon and take in the whole
prospect, he expressed his delight and satisfaction in the brief but significant
exclamation: "Well, this will do!"

The mural was
painted by Kenyon art department director, Norris Rahming. During the
1930s and 40s, several public art programs existed as part of President
Roosevelt's New Deal. The Section (formally the Section of Fine Arts of
the Public Building Administration) commissioned 1,116 murals for post offices
all across the nation (and unlike much of the WPA art, Section murals were
placed even in small towns and rural areas). Unfortunately, however, most
post office architects did not know whether or not a mural was to be installed,
so they had a difficult time creating a design with a potential space for a
mural. Section director Edward Bruce acknowledged the difficulty in
planning, "Look at the spaces in the post offices and you can see what
rotten spaces they are." In the Gambier Post Office, as was typical,
the mural consists of one panel, and is situated over the postmaster's door and
bulletin boards.

The situation for the
artists was not much better. Only one percent of the post office
construction budget was allocated for the mural. This may or may not
have been a fair sum for the size of mural required.

Rahming
submitted his first design, Chase and Curtis on foot at the top of Gambier Hill,
to the Section for approval. Local historical scenes were very popular
subjects of Sections murals, however Rahming's scene lacked sufficient
drama. Rahming, ignoring Curtis' account, then mounted the figures on
horseback and the design was approved. In 1943, Rahming's mural,
"Bishop Chase Selects the Location for Old Kenyon," was installed.

This website is best viewed in CSS- and DHTML-capable browsers
(IE4 and Netscape 4, or later), with Javascript enabled. This site should function
in older browsers, however some of the additional features may not
work, and much of the layout will appear incorrect. If you can see this message,
please visit http://www.microsoft.com or www.netscape.com to download a newer version
of your favorite browser.